Something Under the Bed
by Saphura
Summary: Following the events of "Listen", the young Doctor is shaken by what happened. He thinks he was visited by the boogie man, his friend is worried.


So I blame zagreus-taking-time-apart on tumblr for this fic. Not really :P As far as any of us can tell, that's where the theory that Baby!Doctor thought Clara was really Zagreus started. If you're not familiar with Zagreus in the Doctor Who EU, it's a long and confusing story and I don't fully understand it, but basically Zagreus is the Gallifreyan boogie man. I also blame my history professor for overloading my brain so much that I wrote this instead of working on my thesis.

Please review! Let me know what you think!

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><p>"Theta Sigma!"<p>

Theta jumped in his seat and turned to face the source of his name. The teacher looked down at him like a giant. Around him the other children sniggered. Theta wasn't paying attention again. Theta was lost in his dream world again. Theta was going to get in trouble again. Theta was going to run away again. Theta was going to fail again.

"Y-yes teacher?" Theta asked. He ignored his classmate's stares, their baited breath waiting to be let out in laughter and jeering as he was sent from the classroom again.

"Do you know the answer to this problem?" the teacher asked. Theta looked up at the board. He was pointing to a line of numbers and letters, and a wave of relief passed through him as he recognized the problem.

"It is 31-times the number of pi, teacher," he said.

The students around him quietly voiced their dissatisfaction that he knew the answer this time. That he wasn't going to get in trouble this time. That he got away with not paying attention this time. Theta felt the anxiety leave him in a rush.

"Very good, Theta," the teacher said. There was a tone to his voice that sounded as if he was disappointed that Theta had answered correctly. "Now, for homework I want you to do sections 13 through 16 in your data-cubes, and remember we have a test in five days so…"

Theta was one of the first people out the door. It was lunch and free period now; he could finally get out of the building and have some peace and quiet. Behind him someone was calling his name, but it wasn't a teacher. Theta moved faster in case it was one of the older students looking to pin him against the wall again. Why couldn't they pick on somebody else? Frightened, Theta moved faster through the crowd of students.

He avoided the fool hall. Instead Theta headed for an abandoned room. It was small, and was now a storage space though at one time it had been someone's office. Towards the back he had cleared out some space and turned it into something of a lounge. There was a small table made of boxes, some chairs and cushions and blankets. Very few people other than Theta knew about this place.

Just as Theta was about to take a bite of his lunch, someone called out his name. From behind one of the crates came Koichei. The boy was one of the other people who knew about "the lounge".

"Hey Kos," Theta said.

"That was a close one today," Koschei said as he sat down. "You know if the teachers pull you aside one more time there could be problems."

"I know," Theta said. "But it's not as if I'm the only one."

"You're the worst though," Koschei said. "And you've gotten worse over the last few weeks. Theta, what's wrong with you? What happened? And don't say nothing because I can tell something happened that you're keeping from me and the others so we've respected that and haven't asked, but we're worried about you, man."

Theta looked at the floor. "It's stupid. You'd laugh and say I am dumb."

"You're not dumb!"

"You'd think I'm crazy!"

"Maybe you are, but then again aren't we all?"

Theta didn't respond.

"Tell me!" Koschei demanded, and regretted his tone of voice when Theta cringed. "If you want to," he added softly.

"Zagreus."

Koschei blinked. "Zagreus?"

"Yeah, Zagreus. He's real, and he's not a he, but a she. And she visited me the other night."

Koschei stared at his friend and started to laugh. "Theta, Zagreus is a story, a myth! Something our older siblings and parents told us to scare us and make us behave."

"She's real!" Theta cried. "Koschei, it happened, I met her! Well, not really, but she grabbed me and spoke to me!"

"You were dreaming."

"No I wasn't!"

Koschei could see that his friend was dead serious. Theta was frightened and confused, and really did believe that he had been visited by a mythic figure. "Tell me what happened."

Theta told Koschei what happened, slowly at first but then the words began pouring out of him. How he had run off to the barn again. How they had come and spoke over him, saying that he would never make it in the army (Koschei snorted. "I could have told you that!"), how he had to stop running away from everything, how he would never be welcomed to the Academy and become a real Time Lord. Here Theta paused, almost afraid to go on. Koschei knew how much Theta wanted to go to the Academy. Graduating the Academy was the only way for a Gallifreyan to be granted access to a TARDIS.

"People are always saying things like that about you," Koschei said. "You'll make it to the Academy, you're more than smart enough for that. That doesn't sound like Zagreus."

"She came out after they left," Theta said. "I heard something, so I got up to check and… and…"

"And?"

"She grabbed my ankle. She told me to go back to sleep, to get back into bed, and I did. And then she sat next to me and patted my cheek and told me that as long as I am afraid of what is under the bed, it will be all right. That fear is good, it is a constant companion, it brings us home, that if I am afraid but also wise, I can be kind. And that it was all a dream but I know it wasn't."

"How so?"

"This."

Theta pulled out a small figurine and handed it to Koschei. It was a man, a green man dressed in tall boots, large pants, a plain shirt and holding some kind of device. "There was also a square in the straw where something had been that hadn't been there a few hours earlier, and I heard a TARDIS."

Koschei frowned. "What the heck is this? Why is it made of plastic?"

"Zagreus gave it to me, before she left. How else would I have it? I'd never seen it before until that night and plastics haven't been produced on Gallifrey for centuries!"

"Have you tried a scan search?"

Theta nodded. "It's apparently some kind of toy from a planet called Sol 3."

Koichei examined the figurine for a few moments, and handed it back to Theta. "Theets, I don't think you were visited by Zagreus."

"It wasn't a dream, Koschei!"

"I'm not saying it was. I'm saying that you weren't eaten, and I don't think Zagreus has a TARDIS."

"But everything she said, what if she's just waiting for the right moment?"

"Theta, why would Zagreus, Destroyer of Time and all that, give you a plastic toy from Sol 3 and tell you fear is good and then just leave?"

"I… I don't know," Theta whispered. "But who else could it have been, Kos?"

"I don't know. One of your cousins playing a trick, maybe. Theta, you need to calm down. Zagreus doesn't live under your bed, and didn't visit you the other night. Okay, someone did, but not Zagreus. Maybe you should take that person's advice, though. Maybe you should be afraid of some things, but to use that fear to your advantage."

"Fear makes companions of us all."

"What?"

"That what Zag… she said," Theta said. "We're all afraid of something."

They looked up as a bell rang through the school.

"Like being late for class," Koschei said. "C'mon, Theets, let's go. Bring your little friend with you. Time to face the new teacher."

"Lady Clarrians? I like her," Theta said. "She's nice."

"Then let's go!"

The two gathered up their things and left the lounge. Theta was glad he had told Koschei everything. Part of him still believed that he had been visited by Zagreus, and if it had been Zagreus, then she wasn't as scary as the rhymes made her sound. Theta gripped the figurine tighter. He wouldn't be afraid of failure. He would become a Time Lord, and prove them all wrong.


End file.
